Prabowo Subianto, the Suharto-era general who lost Indonesia’s presidential election by millions of votes, called on the Constitutional Court to immediately declare him the winner or else hold a nationwide revote. The demands were included in an updated challenge that Prabowo’s legal team filed with the court alleging fraud in the July 9 presidential poll. Prabowo, 62, says the victory for Joko Widodo, the Jakarta governor known as Jokowi, was “legally invalid” because it was obtained “unlawfully” or through “abuse of authority” by the election commission, the court said in a statement today.
The legal challenge is the last chance for Prabowo to overturn the poll results, which saw Jokowi finish with 8.4 million more votes than Prabowo and win by a six percentage-point margin. In addition to the official count, every unofficial tally by survey companies that agreed to be audited showed Jokowi winning the election.
Failure to deliver a clean ruling would be a setback for the country’s young democracy still emerging from decades of rule by dictator Suharto, toppled in 1998. The campaign between Jokowi, 53, and Prabowo, a former army commando who was once married to Suharto’s daughter, divided Indonesia between those looking for a more liberal democracy and those nostalgic for a leader who projects strength.
Full Article: Indonesia Presidential Election Loser Prabowo Demands New Vote – Bloomberg.